Complete Story

06/03/2009

Dish ordered to pay TiVo $103M plus interest

By: The Associated Press, CED Magazine

(AP) – A federal court on Tuesday ordered Dish Network Corp. to pay TiVo Inc. $103 million plus interest in damages for using a modified digital video recorder technology that it found to be in violation of TiVo's patent.

U.S. District Court Judge David Folsom, of the Eastern District of Texas, found Dish, formerly EchoStar, to be in contempt of a permanent injunction on TiVo's DVR Time Warp technology, which lets viewers pause, rewind and fast-forward live shows.

Dish had lost a 2004 patent infringement case brought by TiVo, and while the case was on appeal, the satellite provider designed a modified software that it downloaded to customers' DVRs. But TiVo said the workaround software still infringed on its patent and asked the court for a permanent injunction. Judge Folsom agreed with TiVo and awarded it damages.

"The harm caused to TiVo by EchoStar's contempt is substantial," he wrote. "EchoStar has gained millions of customers since this court's injunction was issued, customers that are now potentially unreachable by TiVo."

Shares of TiVo rose $2.53, or 36 percent, to $9.51 in after-hours trading. Dish fell $1.19, or 6.9 percent, to $16.05 after hours.

Dish said in a statement that it intends to appeal the decision.

"Our engineers spent close to a year designing around TiVo's patent and removed the very features that TiVo said infringed at trial," the satellite TV provider said.

Dish spun off EchoStar Corp., which sells set-top boxes and provides satellite television services, in January.